1960's prefab buildings

[Steve]

As watertight as a seive

I arrived at work at 5:30 this morning to find this:


Proceeded to clear up the flood in the warehouse, while water was dripping down into the shop below. Everywhere theres a bucket, it was leaking.


The lucozade fridge in the foreground - I moved that myself. it was sitting next to the other one in the corner, but water was pouring onto it. The buckets required changing every 10 minutes. It has leaked before as you can see from the dodgy repairs to the concrete ceiling, but never this bad. It was pouring.

Anyway 2 hours later we had a man turn up from a maintenance company. He got on the roof and swept the snow onto next door. The pouring steadily descreased to a drip.

The worrying thing is, most of the leaks were coming through electrical conduit and light fittings. Amazingly, nothing blew though.

Lastly, an action shot:


Im very very tired (All photos taken with my W800i camera phone)

 

[slick50]

Crafty what the §&*' happened ...?????

 

[RF Lighting]

The worrying thing is, most of the leaks were coming through electrical conduit and light fittings. Amazingly, nothing blew though.

We used to work in a decrepid old factory which had a very leaky roof.

They had set up a gutter system inside to catch all the drips which ran straight into the sink

They also had a leak directly above an old cast iron / ceramic TP distribution board, and had removed the lid from a conduit inspection elbow to drain the rainwater from the DB

 

[ricicle]

I learnt a very wise lesson a few months back.Our old early 60's factory has a roof like a seive and is always springing up new leaks.I had a call from a fitter on a Sunday evening saying that a large machine oil heater had lost a phase or two.This heater was 177Kw.I didn't want the fitter to be messing around with anything this big so I went in on call out.I discovered that the busbar chamber feeding this and other machines had lost one of its phase fuses back at the switchroom - a 500A.I changed this and went back and the oil heater was ok.Just double checking everything I discovered an overhead busbar was down a phase or two also.This overhead b/bar was fed from the same chamber as the oil heater via a 315A switchfuse.So trying to avoid the need for IR testing and lots of isolation from a 75 meter long busbar I took the decision to switch back on with a new fuse fitted - BOOM!!! I wish I'd had my digital camera as the fireball out of one of the 100A tap off boxes was something else.
Anyway one more 315A and one more 500A fuse later and a repair to the 500A switchfuse, replaced tap off box and dry out later it was time to go home (1am)

Moral - Never assume always test when waters been about!!

 

[Thermo]

good job you work for an outlet of "The Bucket Shop" chain

 

[Steve]

Crafty what the §&*' happened ...?????

Snow had been stood on the roof. about 4 inches of it. when that much snow starts to thaw, and cant get to a gulley because of the volume of snow, it has to go somewhere

On the whole roof there is only one drain. Perhaps when they built the place they took global warming into account.

The man who swept the roof said there are a load of cracks on the roof where the water got through. Visible cracks. But they only let water through when theres a lot of standing water - snow. The roof does still have a decent slope towards the drain though. He showed me some pictures of the roof, it does look in a sorry state (he had the same phone as me )

The buckets are flower buckets, its what they deliver them in.

 

[ricicle]

Do you work in a flower shop then Crafty

 

[Steve]

Do you work in a flower shop then Crafty

Does it look like a flower shop? Note milk in pop fridges and old dvd stand!

Its a convenience store. We have the biggest warehouse storage space of all the shops in south yorkshire

I think monday morning im gonna arrange to get our electrics inspected - a PIR, because of this incident, and a PIR was due in december 06.

 

[markie]

Do you work in a flower shop then Crafty

Does it look like a flower shop? Note milk in pop fridges and old dvd stand!

Its a convenience store. We have the biggest warehouse storage space of all the shops in south yorkshire

I think monday morning im gonna arrange to get our electrics inspected - a PIR, because of this incident, and a PIR was due in december 06.

You need to get your roof done never mind the lecy

 

[Nige F]

Nothing wrong with 60`s prefabs .......thousands of our children have been taught in them....and our NHS relys on them

 

[Steve]

Nothing wrong with 60`s prefabs .......thousands of our children have been taught in them....and our NHS relys on them

They've had new roofs since the 1960's though!

 

[Steve]

By way of an update, while I was sweeping the rest of the water to the fire exit, I thought it wise to try and take the opportunity to clean where i was sweeping, so i sprayed some heavy duty floor cleaner (degreaser, called tiger red) down. Wasn't expecting much. Now where i swept, the concrete is nearly white, like new We use this stuff on lino normally, its a wonder its not taken the pattern off the lino, the amount i put down!! (Think cillit bang x 100, the bottle states "corrosive")

The rest of the concrete now of course looks filthy, so i'm going to go on one day in my scruffs and wet-sweep the rest of the floor, seeng as its not been cleaned since the 60's by the looks of it. This shop is a real sh1t hole, but i hate working in a mess. Theres a funny smell in the warehouse since the flood and i've a feeling its the floor.

 

[ricicle]

Why don't you quit it all and become a Sparky

 

[Steve]

Why don't you quit it all and become a Sparky

Well everything that way, apprenticeships etc, seems to be aimed at 16 year olds, im 21. I was examining my options today, online, but even doncaster college dont detail their courses online!

 

[RF Lighting]

My apprentice is 39!!!

You have nothing to worry about at 21 (Although As you were born in 12/89 I make that 17 )